The Death of Serialism?

[eyeresist]

Thanks for all the suggestions, guys! This should keep me busy for a week or two

I should clarify that by 'melody' I don't just mean a catchy anthem. I guess I mean a capacity for gorgeous musical phrases, brilliantly employed (Bruckner being my personal exemplar of this). As James points out, there's a lot of mediocre melodic music, though fortunately posterity has weeded out most of the older stuff. Modern mediocrities, on the other hand, are still alive and being praised by critics, and picking through the dross can be a drudge.

Likewise I don't care whether classical works fit into a modernist framework or a traditional one. What I respond to is not something easily resolved into categories like that. When I hear something that sounds theory-driven I tend to lose interest, because something is in the way of me appreciating what I hear.

That's part of the reason I've rejected much music, modern and ancient. I also judge by a criterium I can't really describe except as 'musical intelligence' (as opposed to technical virtuosity).

I also hope I will avoid being painted as a philistine or wimp who only likes simplistic pop stuff. In modern music, I've found that some hardcore techno beats most "art music" in terms of imagination and 'musical intelligence' (though, again, there's the problem of picking through the dross). There's also a 'black metal' band called Emperor whom I admire - although the vocals consist largely of hissing, shrieking and screaming, there's obviously a powerful talent at work. Their final album, written and recorded entirely by one person, is packed with invention almost to the point of insanity, though sadly it, and the other albums, have very compressed, "flat" production.

Sorry, got slightly off-topic there... .   0:)

[drogulus]

Generally speaking the romantic mediocrities that tend to fill up the concert space... much easier to get the wider appeal with all that sentimentality. People (inc. musicians) very often need some crutch / diversions to help them stomach pure art. This crutch or diversion manifests itself in a different way - in much contemporary music - with the 'novelty noise' factor. Musical fashion victims are often attracted to it, and we all know the BS factor is high. For many it is easier to find some resonance in what is so often "sound & fury signifying nothing". But this is usually just transient stuff - which of course has it's relevant place for we who are contemporary with it - but is not usually to be confused with the serious stuff...

    Well, I'm confused....do you have to look on the bottom to find the "serious stuff" label?

    Fashion plays a role, but theory is often behind what looks like mere fashion. The theory might say that music is supposed to develop in a certain way, and if it doesn't it somehow doesn't count. The 20th century was a massive refutation of every such idea, if the ideas are to be understood as predictions. If they are just seen as spurs to creating in a new direction they have a role, but I don't see how you need such ideas since music can't help changing organically anyway, just by the process of composers trying new things in an ad hoc way like they've always done. So what's the theory for? In any case, if it is useful it's still better to avoid distracting listeners with it.

[eyeresist]

People (inc. musicians) very often need some crutch / diversions to help them stomach pure art.

Unlike we ubermenschen!

[millionrainbows]

I think serialism was "held on to" by the post WWII generation because it had been previously banned. Ligeti is a good example of a composer who so valued it, in the face of State censorship. This made him & others like it even more.

Serialism seems to have been defended as a fort in academic settings. Charles Wuorinen was a champion, and guys like this worked out of different universities...not in Oklahoma, but other places.

Maybe America has gotten more conservative and religious, and all the universities want more normal choral music and stuff like that.

I still like non-harmonically-derived music. Tonality is everywhere, and it is boring.

Anything different is discouraged these days. Be a good little citizen, or you're a sociopath with mental problems, according to Dr. Phil. I saw it on TV. 

[Karl Henning]

Serialism is a bit like Tonality, in that there is wide (possibly, infinite) variety in the ways a composer may work within the soundworld.  Pronouncing its "death" is wanking tendentious, tunnel-visioned, and wishful.  As may be judged from the outset (Schoenberg and his two great pupils), there was never "only one way" to compose via the method of twelve tones.  The Darmstadters notwithstanding, there was never going to be only One Path Forward with the 'system'.  I compose all the time, governing pitch in ways which were illuminated by the 12-tone method;  it has become part of the language.

Get over it.

[bwv 1080]

Serialism can't die - when it gets to the end it just turns around and goes back to the beginning

[Karl Henning]

(* chortle *)

[Ken B]

Serialism died because it was always only about the ism.

[millionrainbows]

I think serialism is hard to grasp for most people because it is a music which is chromatic, and tends to use all 12 notes most of the time. This is a consideration based on a formalized, conscious use of all 12 notes; most other primitive, folk, and ethnic and otherwise tonal musics are mostly informally derived harmonically, from sound phenomena gathered by the ear, when making or playing instruments, or singing.

When instruments are constructed, there are naturally-occuring harmonic phenomena which are encountered, which usually guide the results in directions which are harmonically-related, such as mouth-cavity resonances, string harmonics, and the acoustic properties of pipes and tubes.

It's no wonder that mankind has universally created harmonically-based music for the most part; I've never heard of 'tribal' serialism, or folk, popular, or ethnic music which uses all 12 notes, or a 12-note division. There is melodic music which is not harmonically derived, such as the 7-note equally-divided octave scale.

When considering the arbitrary nature of the 12-note division of the octave, this puts serialism and chromatic music into its own uniquely Western context, and the comparison with other cultures becomes absurd.

So, I am forced to conclude that, 12 notes or not, most Europeans and Americans are just like any other human species in their fondness for harmonically-derived music which is harmonic and based on sensual, visceral factors of consonance and tone-centeredness.

[Ken B]

I think serialism is hard to grasp for most people because it is a music which is chromatic, and tends to use all 12 notes most of the time. This is a consideration based on a formalized, conscious use of all 12 notes; most other primitive, folk, and ethnic and otherwise tonal musics are mostly informally derived harmonically, from sound phenomena gathered by the ear, when making or playing instruments, or singing.

When instruments are constructed, there are naturally-occuring harmonic phenomena which are encountered, which usually guide the results in directions which are harmonically-related, such as mouth-cavity resonances, string harmonics, and the acoustic properties of pipes and tubes.

It's no wonder that mankind has universally created harmonically-based music for the most part; I've never heard of 'tribal' serialism, or folk, popular, or ethnic music which uses all 12 notes, or a 12-note division. There is melodic music which is not harmonically derived, such as the 7-note equally-divided octave scale.

When considering the arbitrary nature of the 12-note division of the octave, this puts serialism and chromatic music into its own uniquely Western context, and the comparison with other cultures becomes absurd.

So, I am forced to conclude that, 12 notes or not, most Europeans and Americans are just like any other human species in their fondness for harmonically-derived music which is harmonic and based on sensual, visceral factors of consonance and tone-centeredness.

So your argument should apply to non serial dodecaphony. And it doesn't.

[millionrainbows]

Serialism is a bit like Tonality, in that there is wide (possibly, infinite) variety in the ways a composer may work within the sound world...As may be judged from the outset (Schoenberg and his two great pupils), there was never "only one way" to compose via the method of twelve tones.

That's true in a certain way, but might be misleading. Serial music deals with the total chromatic, so it's going to sound chromatic; and serialism does not create tonal hierarchies out of harmonic resources, so it's going to be linear, contrapuntal, and thematic/motivic.

Other forms of harmonically-derived modernism are going to sound like some form of tonality, because that's what they are; hybrid, mutated forms of different 'tonalities.'

Of course, the more chromatic the "tonality" is, the more localized and involuted it's going to sound, because that's what happens in chromatic divisions: the recursive patterns get smaller and more in-octave.

[bwv 1080]

No music outside of the Western tradition uses a similar systematic harmony, the textures are monophonic, polyphonic or heterophonic.  Anyway, who cares if serialism is 'unnatural'? -  so is living past 40 or arguing on the Internet

[Contemporaryclassical]

The death of serialism?
Serialism isn't a method bound to time, if Bach is still relevant than something from 50 years must still be as relevant or moreso.

If we're talking in terms of the social/historical context, sure I'll say it isn't primarily situated as the big "this is new" minded revolution it once was.

Regardless, it still remains an important part of music

[Mahlerian]

The death of serialism?
Serialism isn't a method bound to time, if Bach is still relevant than something from 50 years must still be as relevant or moreso.

If we're talking in terms of the social/historical context, sure I'll say it isn't primarily situated as the big "this is new" minded revolution it once was.

Regardless, it still remains an important part of music

All of these "blind alley" remarks are even more ludicrous given the fact that the 12-tone method in its most strict form still survived longer than the high classical era lasted, and this amid a time of much more rapid aesthetic change.

[71 dB]

In my opinion the world of art music is a bit in a stagnated state. To break free from that state new ways of doing things is needed. I predict that the next big step will be a real incorporation of electronic music into classical music. All the "electroacoustic" experiments and works we have are pretty lame and silly in this sense. People need to stop thinking instruments as acoustical, electric and computer-created. There's only instruments based on different technical principles. There a huge mental gap between electronic music and classical music and in my opinion hardly anyone is building a real bridge to connect these two worlds, but the bridge is needed for the next step. Yes, classical music composers use electronics and computers, but they force that stuff into the classical world. They are only looking over the mental gap, not walking over it. Similarly computer nerds force classical music into the synthetic world again only watching over the mental gap. The result is that the forced combination of the two worlds does not give anything, on the contrary it often takes away!

The reason, why nobody is building the bridge is because it takes an Einstein-level genius to do it. One of the biggest problems is that electronic and especially computer-based music is extremely accurate in nature while classical music is fluid in nature and contains a "random" incredient called artistic expression. The concept of "accuracy" are completely different in these worlds. Accurate tempi changes of classical music are pretty meaningless is the world of computer world often dominated by constant tempo clocked at an accuracy of nanoseconds. On the other hand, the accuracy of timbral fine-tuning or "track" level adjustment is meaningless in classical music.  In classical music instruments aren't isolated "tracks". They are parts of an ensemble or orchestra. Classical music composers work with ensembles and orchestras while computer music composers work with "tracks". The philosophy is fundamentally different. Classical music is ever-developping and changing in nature, while computer music is often based on loops and the ideas of repeating optimized "blocks of music" such as sampled riffs many times. Computer music contains informational redundance that is not supposed to be taken negatively but as a "primordial" force.

So, we need a music style combining "fluid accuracy", "bit accuracy", "orchestra philosophy", "track philosophy", "ever-change" and "repeated blocks". That may take more than an Einstein of music! Only when we know how to do this the next step can be taken and the stagnation ends. In the past mental gaps were always much much smaller and music styles evolved constantly. Now we are in a situation where the gap is huge. Artists such as Stockhausen, Autechre and Tangerine Dream are perhaps partial solutions of the problem?

[millionrainbows]

I will reiterate that 12-tone and serial music assume a musical language not built on hierarchies created out of harmonic considerations. It is based on the discreet pitches of the 12-note chromatic gamut, and as such it is approached that way, in set theory, as sets of pitches. We can say that intervals are the 'harmonic' content of serialization, as relationships abstracted from specific pitch identities. These intervals will also be discreet and separate from any hierarchical reference to a single pitch or pitch station.

As such, serial music and music based on the above principles will always sound "atonal" and will not create an overriding sense of tonality. If it does produce emphasis on localized tone centers or pitch-centricities, these will also be discreet as "intervallic shapes," independent from any single pitch reference. As such, these will be independent templates which move freely. There will be no dominating pitch reference or "tonality" in this kind of music.

Otherwise, music created from harmonic considerations, creating an hierarchy of reference, will always sound like some form of tonality.

[Karl Henning]

In my opinion the world of art music is a bit in a stagnated state.

I'm writing a piece I am very happy with, so stagnation is not my experience 

[bwv 1080]

I will reiterate that 12-tone and serial music assume a musical language not built on hierarchies created out of harmonic considerations. It is based on the discreet pitches of the 12-note chromatic gamut, and as such it is approached that way, in set theory, as sets of pitches. We can say that intervals are the 'harmonic' content of serialization, as relationships abstracted from specific pitch identities. These intervals will also be discreet and separate from any hierarchical reference to a single pitch or pitch station.

Not sure I agree, but granting everything you say - so what? Should I listen to Webern's or Babbitt's music differently? 

As such, serial music and music based on the above principles will always sound "atonal" and will not create an overriding sense of tonality. If it does produce emphasis on localized tone centers or pitch-centricities, these will also be discreet as "intervallic shapes," independent from any single pitch reference. As such, these will be independent templates which move freely. There will be no dominating pitch reference or "tonality" in this kind of music.

Otherwise, music created from harmonic considerations, creating an hierarchy of reference, will always sound like some form of tonality.

This part is a mess as you can't keep making up your own definitions in your attempts at music dogmatism. Most music around the world has no concept of harmony but is tonal. The concept of harmony really came about in the 17th century and carried through contemporary popular music and other genres.  Carter's music is very harmonic but certainly atonal under any definition of the word.  Any music based on symmetrical scales, like Debussy's whole tone pieces or Messiaen's early music will necessarily lack a tonal center, but wont be fully chromatic.  The tonality of many late romantic pieces like Liszt's Nuages Gris is also debatable.  Also, its not that difficult to write a rigorous 12-tone piece that uses conventional triads and melodic movement and make it sound like late romantic chromaticism.  Even simpler, just play some rows over a drone. 

[Contemporaryclassical]

Not sure I agree, but granting everything you say - so what? Should I listen to Webern's or Babbitt's music differently? 

There is often quite a clear harmonic hierarchy in Webern, regardless of the use of tone rows. Babbitt follows suit for the most part too.
One only needs to read the scores to see the way he progresses through different harmonic stabilities, just like the renaissance music he was influenced by, or even Bach. It doesn't take a completely different approach, not at all.
If you wanted to truly understand what is going on, try a Schenker analysis.

[bwv 1080]

There is often quite a clear harmonic hierarchy in Webern, regardless of the use of tone rows. Babbitt follows suit for the most part too.
One only needs to read the scores to see the way he progresses through different harmonic stabilities, just like the renaissance music he was influenced by, or even Bach. It doesn't take a completely different approach, not at all.
If you wanted to truly understand what is going on, try a Schenker analysis.

Schenker is sceintistic reductionist garbage, developed to show the supposed superiority of German music.  It 'findings' are trivial, who cares about the reduction of  a Beethoven symphony to a fundamental line?  That's not what makes the music.  It is completely worthless on modern period music